Vancouver Day Trip

In the middle of October 2007 I went for a day trip to Vancouver BC from Los Angeles CA. I left on Monday evening after work and came back on Tuesday evening. The main purpose of the trip was to extend my TN status in US. However, since I was already in the Vancouver for a whole day I decided to take a look at the city and do some sight seeing. I stayed in a nice, not to expensive hotel for one short night and in the morning I rented a small Nissan to move around the city. My first destination was Stanley park which is a tropical forest just past downtown Vancouver. I found the park very beautiful for a city park. It had great views of downtown. The downtown itself was very much like Toronto downtown - very similar but somewhat smaller and somewhat easier to drive across even on a Tuesday morning. After spending few hours driving to and exploring the Stanley park I went for the Grouse mountain resort with it well know steep trail up the mountain. I went up the trail with my backpack and extra water - next time I do it I will be going with just a pint of water as other runners did. I have finished the trail in just under 50min - which for the first time is not that bad. Season best time is 35min. On the next day I will feel my calfs from all that running up this giant stair master trail. Views from the top were great as the weather was excellent for Vancouver - almost cloudless sky. Temperatures were also high, very good for hiking at around 70F. At the very top of the hill there was a lot of snow but the ski village had almost no snow. As you can see people and wild animals live rather close by. After going down the trail (didn't want to wait for a ride down) I went back to the car rental place. It was a great hike and definitely a way to go up given the fact that ride up costs more that $30 (more then the Palm Springs Tramway which goes up far steeper and higher mountain). Interesting is the fact that this trail is so popular that for around $20 you can get a timer chip and your time will be displayed on a screen inside the lodge. It is a good thing that I opted for early return to the car rental place as the traffic was heavy. Vancouver has almost no highways - something about it being hard to build a highway through the mountains or through the ocean. Almost all traffic goes through city streets - my only complain about Vancouver. My TN application took just 10min and I was able to book an earlier flight to LA - was home around 10PM not past midnight as originally planned. This was a great 26h or so trip.

Click thumbnails to see larger image and more detailed explanation of what is shown on a given picture.

yet another view from the top	water everywhere with some more climbing to the top of the ski lift	view of the hlls from Stanley park
view of the hlls from Stanley park 4	view of the hlls from Stanley park 3	view of the hlls from Stanley park 2
view of Vancouver bay 2	tiny lighthouse at the shore of Stanley park	suspension bridge has only three traffic lines
street in Vancouver in middle of autum	stanley park panorama	ski village
ski village from the top	shiny rock is very wet with water dripping everywhere	river or road
parking lot machine's roof is wet as everything else around her - water evaporates in morning sun	on the bridge - from my rental Nissan	on highway window shot
nice suspended bridge between downtown and North Vancouver	my german style hotel	mountains in every direction you look
local mountains from the top of Grose Mountain	hiking is encouraged for everyone	higer up you have some snow which is about 7 inches deep
harbour around Vancouver downtown	grose mountain lift	grose mountain from Stanley park
enjoying a sunny day in Vancouver's Stanley park	enjoying a great day at the top	downtown Vancouver from Stanley park
closeup of white giant	big peak in the backgound	big mountain not that far away - will do it this spring
at the top there is still stuff to do	approching downtown vancouver	another view of the city
animals are free to walk around her as long as they are not bears	a bit sweaty after a good workout	Vancouver from the top
Vancouver bay from the top of Grose Mountain	Vancouver and ski village	Vancouver and ski village 2
Grose grind trai 3	Grose grind trai 2	Grose grind trai 1

Album created on 2007-11-03 and last updated on 2007-11-03